EVOLUTION OF

THE BROADBAND
NETWORK
GATEWAY

INCREASE PROFIT AND LOYALTY

BY DELIVERING RESIDENTIAL
SUBSCRIBERS THE FREEDOM
THEY CRAVE
APPLICATION NOTE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract

What subscribers want / 2

Subscriber freedom today: OTT VoD / 3

Evolving the residential services network

Limitations of centralized BRAS architectures

Requirements for the next-generation BNG / 6

Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR: Purpose-built IP services platform

Industry-leading BNG capability / 9
Industry-leading performance

10

Distributed service intelligence

10

Flexible IPv4 extension/IPv6 migration / 11

Metering and fair-share use

12

Application assurance and subscriber-friendly plans / 12

OTT Monetization

14

Location freedom: Wi-Fi

Enhanced services

15

16

Enhanced IPTV / 16
Evolving video services and CDNs / 17

Conclusion

18

ABSTRACT
Residential service providers today are at odds with the very subscribers they serve.
Along with the liberating experience of Over The Top VoD Video on Demand (OTT VoD)
services that cater to their unique needs, subscribers now want the freedom of a
broadband service without boundaries one in which they can consume any content
or application, on any device, anytime, anywhere. Challenged by the negative impact of
OTT VoD traffic on network bandwidth and the perceived threat to their PayTV services,
service providers are responding with rigid caps on bandwidth utilization.
There is a better way. Rather than discourage the use of the very service they provide,
service providers can embrace subscriber demands for freedom and enhance their services
to thrive on higher bandwidth consumption. However, realizing these goals requires
change. Centralized Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS) architectures lack the scale,
performance and service flexibility to thrive in this new VoD-dominated era. Service providers require a new approach to planning and building residential networks, an approach
that embraces more performance, distributed subscriber management and enhanced
feature capabilities to deliver higher quality, more personalized subscriber services.
Targeted to service providers as well as product marketing, network architecture and
network operations executives, this document provides an overview of changing subscriber
needs, the new service opportunities now open to service providers and the transformation
challenges they face. We explain how all of these challenges and opportunities are best
addressed with a distributed residential services architecture based on the Alcatel-Lucent
7750 Service Router (SR).

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

MARKET TRENDS AND CHALLENGES

What subscribers want

Residential broadband networks are once again entering a period of major change
and opportunity driven by subscriber needs and expectations (see Figure 1). The
first-generation networks based on centralized BRAS routers were driven by subscriber
demand for an always-on High Speed Internet (HSI) service. The second generation,
powered by Ethernet-based Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) routers, was driven by
subscriber demand for a linear TV service (content broadcast at specific times) delivered
in conjunction with voice and HSI services.
Todays increasingly sophisticated and Internet-savvy subscribers are raising the bar yet
again. They want to remove the boundaries and limitations imposed by todays broadband
services and customer premises equipment to create a richer, personalized experience that
leverages all that the Internet and the consumer electronics industry have to offer.
Figure 1. Customer expectations driving residential broadband evolution

INTERNET
CONNECTIVITY

IPTV AND
TRIPLE PLAY

BROADBAND
WITHOUT BOUNDARIES

CUSTOMER
EXPECTATION

RESIDENTIAL EDGE
TECHNOLOGY FOCUS

IP forwarding
Single service
ATM

RESIDENTIAL EDGE
ROUTING PLATFORM

OBSOLETE
BRAS

IPTV multicasting
Service silos
Ethernet

VoD streaming
Service blending
and personalization
IPv6, Wi-Fi

OBSOLETE
BRAS and
video edge

Enhanced BNG

More specifically, subscribers want:

Device freedom: The ability to consume, control and share content and the HSI
connection on any device from PC to gaming console, to tablet to big-screen TV.
Schedule freedom: The ability to consume content based on their schedule, whether
live, time shifted or on demand.
Location freedom: The ability to replicate the home experience outside the home at
Wi-Fi hotspots in stadiums, coffee shops, shopping malls and airports.
Plan freedom: The ability to attain optimal value through customized HSI plans that
reflect each subscribers unique application and content consumption needs.
Content freedom: The flexibility to consume any content whether cloud, premium,
live or user generated at a resolution level that meets their changing needs and the
capabilities of the consuming device.
Interactive freedom: The ability to transform content consumption into an interactive
experience, with sidebar content and suggestions, social media integration, and
interacting ads and content. The ability to consume networked applications such as
online gaming without the quality issues that diminish such online experiences today.
Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway
ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

Subscribers also want the freedom to blend attributes of different residential services
such as the high quality of linear TV , the flexibility of VoD and the interactivity of the
web into a single, personalized service experience that fulfills their unique digital
lifestyle needs. For example, a subscriber may want to watch an on-demand video that
is not part of the premium linear TV lineup but has high video quality, fed directly to the
big-screen TV, while using a tablet device to interact with other viewers through social
networks and reviewing suggestions for related web and video content.

Subscriber freedom today: OTT VoD

OTT VoD providers were the first to identify and capitalize on this demand for freedom.
Innovators such as Netflix and YouTube launched flexible VoD services that have
become household names and, in conjunction with VoD offerings from later entrants,
are expected to consume over 58 percent of Internet bandwidth by 2015. Google and
Apple are taking these first-generation services to the next level by adding their cloud
infrastructure, consumer devices and operating systems into the mix to provide a richer
experience within the confines of their brand and ecosystem.
For service providers, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity (see Figure 2
and Figure 3). A challenge because a single unicast VoD session consumes the same
network bandwidth as a linear-TV flow delivered to thousands of subscribers through
multicast. A challenge because VoD streaming protocols and applications are relentless;
they adjust to changing network conditions, consuming new network capacity as soon
as it is made available.
The impact on service providers has been rapid, global and significant. In the United
States alone, approximately one third of ISP network capacity at peak times is now being
consumed by Netflix users who represent a small fraction of the total ISP subscriber
base. OTT VoD providers across the globe are creating similar challenges for service
providers in Canada (Netflix), the United Kingdom (BBC iPlayer) and China (Youku.com),
to name only a few.
Figure 2. The impact of VoD on IP network bandwidth

NETWORK BROADBAND UTILIZATION COMPARISON

One IPTV channel,
1000 subscribers
14000

12000

12000

10000

10000

10000

8000

6000

Kilobits per second

14000

12000

4000

8000

6000

4000

2000

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

0
0

1000

Time (seconds
1.07 Mb upload

24.40 Mb download

Controlled with P2P throttling

Data: Caffeinated Bitstream, 2009

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

x1000

6000

2000

0
0

8000

4000

2000

One VoD movie,

1000 subscribers

14000

Kilobits per second

Kilobits per second

7 music
downloads

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

1000

Time (seconds
2.17 Mb upload

1.13 Gb download

Optimized with multicast

2000

3000

4000

Time (seconds
2.17 Mb upload

1.13 Gb download

No throttle, no multicast

5000

6000

Figure 3. The financial impact of OTT VoD on service providers

VoD WILL ACCOUNT FOR 58%

OF ALL TRAFFIC BY 2015

Bandwidth per user

Source: Informa, 2011

youku.com
NETFLIX GENERATES 30% OF ISP TRAFFIC
WITH 3% OF ISP SUBSCRIBER BASE
BBC iPlayer

Source: Alcatel-Lucent, 2011

2000

2010

2005
Residential HSI profit

Netflix

2015

Residential HSI bandwidth

Service providers have responded to the OTT VoD bandwidth challenge and the shift
away from their own linear TV services by introducing rigid bandwidth caps and
down-speed techniques that limit bandwidth consumption on their HSI services. While
this approach does provide short-term relief, it pits the service provider against their
customer the subscriber and damages this all-important relationship. It also repositions the OTT vendor who fulfills subscriber demands for freedom at the top of the value
chain and popularity polls. There is a better way.
Winning the battle for the subscriber
Rather than discourage the use of the very service they provide, service providers should
embrace the concept of subscriber freedom and leverage their core strengths to thrive on
increasing network usage (see Figure 4).
Figure 4. Wining the battle for the subscriber

Consumer electronics ecosystems

SP strength
Control network access

OTT content
and application
providers

Opportunity
Ensure fair-share use with personalized subscriber
plans, monetize OTT apps/content, add Wi-Fi

Premium linear TV service

Enrich with VoD and web content, add new app services

Home ecosystem visibility

Use data to personalize subcriber experience, insert ads

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

Service
provider

Because they control access to the subscriber, service providers are in a unique position
to free subscribers from OTT VoD service quality issues by providing a consistently high
quality of experience (QoE) that will always be outside of the OTT vendors scope of
control to deliver. They can monetize the OTT flows that travel through their network,
provide subscribers with optimal application-aware plans to free them from rigid usage
caps or offer Wi-Fi access to provide the freedom of a home experience off-the-wire.
They can work with OTT vendors to provide optimized application services that free
subscribers from best-effort quality limitations of OTT gaming, person-to-person (p2p)
video conferencing and other applications.
Service providers can also leverage their strong relationships with content providers.
They can enrich current linear TV services with VoD and web content to deliver the
blended broadband service experience their customers crave.
Finally, service providers can use their unique ability to gather performance and service
usage data to personalize services and insert personalized ads.
At stake in this battle for the subscriber is hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue
from content alone, and the service providers position in the value chain whether as
a provider of commodity Internet access or as a conduit for value-added services. With
all the limitations of todays legacy BRAS-based architectures still in place, many service
providers are ill equipped to win their share of the revenue pie.

EVOLVING THE RESIDENTIAL

SERVICES NETWORK
Limitations of centralized BRAS architectures
Figure 5 shows some of the key limitations of todays legacy broadband architectures.
Figure 5. Traditional centralized BRAS architectures

Pay TV
(big-screen TV)

Video
service edge

Video
servers

External
CDN or
transparent
cache

CPE
Fixed access

Aggregation

Internet

VoD streams traverse entire network

High-speed Internet
(PC)

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

BRAS

Overlay model limitations

Residential services today are delivered on separate IP service platforms; HSI service is
delivered through the BRAS router while video service is delivered through a separate
video edge router. Each service connects to a different device at the home (TV or PC),
often provisioned with a different IP address. This wall between services and lack
of unified subscriber treatment makes it difficult to deliver the blended, personalized
experience that subscribers want and is at odds with the demand for convergence
within the home.
An overlay architecture is also very expensive to deploy and maintain. Multiple IP service
platforms quickly deplete capital budgets, and the service overlays they spawn result in
complex provisioning and capacity planning in the access and aggregation networks.
Centralized architecture limitations

The HSI service that contains all the unicast video flows from Internet-based OTT providers is
delivered to subscribers from centralized BRAS routers deep within the service providers
network. Each time a subscriber starts a VoD session, a new video stream is created between
the servers/caches that contain the content and the subscriber. The resulting traffic crosses
the service providers entire network, from the peering point or transparent cache behind
the BRAS router all the way to the subscribers residence.
As more and more users shift to VoD content consumption, transport costs for video
skyrocket, and the resulting network and server congestion lowers performance and
service availability. With video taking center stage as the killer app for residential use,
central content injection and a central BRAS no longer make sense.
BRAS legacy obsolescence issues

BRAS routers may have impressive subscriber density for yesterdays Internet traffic mix
but, with Internet video in the picture, they lack the performance and capacity to keep
up. Actual subscriber density quickly drops as more and more users stream video, and
the economies of scale of a centralized BRAS architecture quickly crumble.
IPv6 migration is also an area of concern for service providers because so many legacy
BRAS routers lack the performance and scale of a carrier-grade network address translation
(NAT) capability to enable flexible IPv4-to-IPv6 migration. And because a BRAS is a
single-service delivery platform (HSI), it lacks the capability to delivery new features or
services beyond basic HSI or reap the operational and cost benefits of service convergence.

Requirements for the next-generation BNG

A new, distributed architecture optimized for video growth and service convergence is
required to capitalize on the delivery of subscriber freedom(see Figure 6). This architecture
is based on a BNG platform with the attributes that follow.
Massive scale and performance

The BNG must sustain high throughput and be capable of 100G+ speeds with services
to support the rapid growth and monetization of video. This massive scale also enables
convergence: the ability to deliver all residential services from a common delivery platform
in the IP edge. Convergence enables a unified view of each subscriber with consistent
treatment of all the subscribers traffic across all services used. This enhances a service
providers ability to deliver a blended, high-quality service experience that is personalized
for each subscriber and eases the task of capacity planning across the different services.

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

Convergence also simplifies provisioning by removing the need for multiple service
overlays in the access and aggregation networks and the need for multiple IP addresses
per subscriber.
Figure 6. Distributed architecture based on a high-performance, enhanced BNG

IP services edge
Subscriber

More bandwidth and

fewer users per GE port

Monetized
content cache

Blended, personalized,
high-QoE service

External
CDN or
transparent
cache

Service
Fixed access

Wi-Fi access

eBNG

Distributed service intelligence

The BNG must contain IP over Ethernet/Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (IPoE/DHCP)
subscriber management capabilities for multiservice support while remaining backwards
compatible with legacy Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet (PPPoE). Service intelligence
to help simplify provisioning and authentication and to ensure high availability is a
baseline requirement. Multiple queues per subscriber with flexible allocation are required
to ensure quality of service (QoS) for multiple services and applications.
In a distributed architecture, subscriber management, content caches and high-touch
processing capabilities move to the edge of the network, closer to the customer. By
distributing service intelligence to the edge, service providers can provision more bandwidth and fewer subscribers per Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) port to accommodate the growth
of video and other high-bandwidth services. VoD flows are limited to high-bandwidth
access networks and no longer traverse the entire IP network. This has the dual benefit
of enabling long-term scale and lowering cost per bit for video transport. Because VoD
content delivered by the service provider has a much shorter distance to travel compared
to content from the OTT VoD cloud, service providers can also offer significantly higher
service quality and performance than OTT offerings.
Service providers looking for a future-safe approach to delivering truly differentiated
residential services need to consider the benefits of introducing enhanced capabilities
such as high-touch processing to the common platform. High-touch processing enables
extension of IPv4-based services, OTT monetization and new types of service bundles
and service personalization for residential subscribers. The ability to distribute application
monitoring and policy enforcement capabilities right to the edge of the network
ensures the highest quality of service for residential customers. Along with the universal
gateway capability described in the next section, this enhanced ability to truly monetize
subscriber freedom is the value of the enhanced BNG ( eBNG).

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

Video
servers

Internet

Universal gateway

An enhanced BNG has the ability to bring other services and access methods to the
common platform. Service providers can integrate community Wi-Fi access to provide
exciting new service bundles that enrich the residential subscriber experience. They
can converge residential, business and mobile IP services on a single IP services edge
platform to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and provide universal access to any
content/application from any device, anywhere.
Service transformation: roadmap for success
With OTT VoD providers disrupting service provider business models and BRAS routers
lacking the performance and scale to support cost-effective video delivery and flexible
IPv6 migration, the time to begin broadband network transformation is now. Once
theyve deployed a high performance BNG at the IP edge of their residential network and
moved towards a more distributed architecture for subscriber management, service providers can truly start to capitalize on new revenue opportunities in the video-dominated
era of residential services (see Figure 7).
Figure 7. Flexible service transformation and new revenue opportunities

OBSOLETE
Legacy migration

Metering and fair

share use

Enhanced
video services

OTT app zero rating

Business intelligence
HTTP error redirection
gathering
Networked application
Application- and contentservices (such as gaming)
aware metering
Personalized
plans
High scale and
performance
IPv6, ESM flexibility
eBNG platform
Enhanced IPTV
VoD and content
delivery network
Evolution to blended
video services

Real Wi-Fi
Wholesale Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi data offload
for 3G/4G

OTT monetization

Wi-Fi integration

Service providers can start by monetizing OTT applications, enforcing fair-share access
through personalized plans, offering Wi-Fi access or even enhancing existing video and
application services: the starting point will vary with each service provider. For example,
a service provider with existing linear TV services forming the bulk of their revenue may
choose to begin with enriching their video services through an on-net content delivery
network (CDN), while a service provider with no content experience may start by
optimizing their HSI service with application-based metering to create personalized plans.
Because each service transformation journey is likely to take many twists and turns as
subscriber needs, legislative constraints and even a service providers financial position
change, it is of paramount importance that service providers invest in a platform with
the flexibility to accommodate change.

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

To assist providers in their service transformation journey, Alcatel-Lucent has integrated

all the industry-leading capabilities of a high-performance BNG described in the previous
sections and all the value-added enhancements required to generate new service revenue
in the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR. Customers have the flexibility of installing a new 7750
SR chassis configured with this new functionality or upgrading deployed 7750 SRs and
Alcatel-Lucent 7450 Ethernet Service Switches (ESSs). (The 7450 ESSs currently perform
access aggregation or IPTV multicast delivery). The remainder of this paper discusses the
new service capabilities and the enhanced feature set that enables them of the 7750
SR as outlined in Figure 7.

ALCATEL-LUCENT 7750 SR:

PURPOSE-BUILT IP SERVICES PLATFORM
The first step in the residential service transformation outlined in the previous section is
to replace the centralized BRAS architecture with a high-performance BNG to enable IPv6
migration, VoD (unicast traffic) scale and new service enablement. The Alcatel-Lucent
7750 SR addresses legacy platform issues by providing the features, performance and
scale lacking in BRAS routers.

Industry-leading BNG capability

Alcatel-Lucent has a long track record as a key force shaping the direction of residential
broadband networks. The BNG capability of the 7750 SR draws from this experience and
expertise to lead the BNG market in flexibility, scale and robustness:
A robust subscriber management implementation that converges legacy PPPoE access
with IPoE to enable video and other new service capabilities
Multivendor support for RADIUS authentication, with built-in DHCP-RADIUS proxy
functions to leverage existing authentication infrastructure
Flexible IP address management by DHCP relay or integrated DHCP servers
PPPoE-based retail and wholesale support with Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol location
area code support
Support for time- and volume-based accounting with RADIUS- or Diameter-based
credit control to support pre-paid and other new services
Automated provisioning of logical access interfaces through a managed Services
Access Point concept to minimize operational costs and reduce time-to-market
8 ingress and 8 egress queues per subscriber (using high-speed Media Dependent
Adapter[HS-MDA]) to support multiple services or service personalization (through
QoS per application)
Flexible use of network infrastructure: can act as a BNG or an Ethernet Aggregation
Node (EAN) simultaneously or extend subscriber management functionality across
an access network through pseudo-wires
Highest levels of BNG redundancy in the market to ensure a high-quality, always-on
service experience (through Subscriber Router Redundancy Protocol, multi-chassis
link aggregation, and pseudo-wires and VPLS link redundancy).

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

Industry-leading performance
Based on current subscriber trends, Tier 1 and Tier 2 central offices (COs) will require
dozens of new 100GigE ports to handle unicast video growth over the next few years.
To meet this demand, Alcatel-Lucent recently delivered their third-generation network
processor (NP) for the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR, the FP3.
Supporting packet throughput of 400Gb/s, the FP3 provides the performance and highbandwidth port density to accommodate this video surge. All features are supported
at line rate so that network operators can create, monitor and control new feature-rich
services without impacting performance. Feature continuity with previous FP generations
enables FP3-enabled equipment to remain backwards-compatible while benefiting from
the latest performance enhancements.
Enabled by FP technology, the 7750 SR has the bandwidth and feature processing scale to
support service convergence and service blending, the benefits of which were described
in the section Market Trends and Challenges. Hundreds of thousands of subscribers can
be supported per chassis simultaneously to access multiple residential (VoD, HSI and
IPTV) or business (Ethernet VPN, IP VPN and business Internet) services.

Distributed service intelligence

Distributed service intelligence on the 7750 SR is enabled by the Multi-Service Integrated
Service Adapter (MS-ISA); (see Figure 8). The MS-ISA provides the embedded high-touch
processing required to differentiate services, optimize network operations and enable
long-term scale:
Specialized service capability can be embedded anywhere it is needed in the 7750 SR
network so that new services can be turned on quickly and efficiently.
High-touch video software enables revenue-generating enhancements to video
services, including fast channel change, enhanced video quality, monetization through
ad insertion and VoD services. Long-term scale for VoD growth is enabled through
support for integrated caching. These enhancements are discussed in more detail in the
Enhanced Video Services section.
Specialized DPI software allows service providers to lower operational costs and
maximize service revenue through application-level intelligence for capacity planning,
intelligent metering for managing subscriber bandwidth, carrier-grade NAT for flexible
IPv6 migration capabilities and integrated security to protect both the network and
subscribers.
A high level of programmability ensures new high-touch feature development to
enable new services as opportunities materialize.

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

10

Figure 8. Distributed service intelligence with the MS-ISA

VIDEO/CONTENT

Industrys fastest channel change

Retransmit on error for high QoE
PerfectStream video conditioning
Video-quality monitoring
Content caching/delivery

eBNG EXTENSIONS
Carrier-grade NAT
Multiple tunneling and IPv6
migration capabilities

Integrated
Services Adapter

APPLICATION ASSURANCE
Application-to-subscriber
monitoring and control
Metering and fair-share usage
Service personalization and
consistency

SECURITY SERVICES
Distributed Denial of Service
(DDoS) attack mitigation
IPSec

Flexible IPv4 extension/IPv6 migration

The reality of IPv4 address exhaustion is hitting home as consumer electronics vendors
churn out more and more IP-capable devices. The result is that service providers can no
longer defer IPv6 migration strategies. With so much at stake as revenue-generating networks undergo IPv6 transition, one size definitely does not fit all. The 7750 SR provides
service providers with the flexibility to extend IPv4 lifespan, migrate specific services or
networks to IPv6, or dive right into a full-scale IPv4/IPv6 implementation (see Figure 9):
Figure 9. Flexible IPv6 migration

IPv4 subscriber (Router or bridge)

Extend IPv4 investment
Carrier-grade NAT: 60 million
entries per chassis

IPv4

Works with routed or bridged

home gateways

CGNAT

IPv4

eBNG

Internet

IPv4 subscriber
Migrate access and service
Carrier-grade NAT

IPv6

IPv4 transport in
IPv6 softwires

CGNAT

IPv4

eBNG

Internet

Dual stack subscriber

Complete migration
Carrier-grade NAT
Dual stack everywhere

Dual stack

CGNAT
eBNG

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

11

Dual stack

Internet

Extend use of IPv4 as long as possible

Adress overloading is avoided by embedding Carrier-Grade NAT (CG-NAT) capabilities

in the network with the MS-ISA hardware. With over 60 million entries per chassis,
the 7750 SR provides the most scalable integrated and carrier-grade NAT solution in
the industry. Extensions such as Layer 2-aware NAT provide even more flexibility and
operational savings by enabling IP-agnostic address translation.
Deploy dual stack in network only

The 7750 SR supports industry standards for softwires that tunnel subscriber IPv4
packets through the service providers IPv6 network to an IPv4 Internet.
Adopt network-wide dual stack capability
(Broadband Forum in WT-177 for IPoE and in WT-187 for PPPoE)

The 7750 SR supports wire-rate, dual-stack routing and large-scale, dual-stack subscriber
management (256,000 subscribers per chassis) to support dual-stack transition.

METERING AND FAIR-SHARE USE

With a distributed architecture and a high performance BNG at the IP edge, service
providers can start to capitalize on new revenue opportunities. One of the first areas
of focus for most service providers will be metering and fair-share use.
As discussed in the section Market Trends and Challenges, consumers are dissatisfied
with current attempts by service providers to limit OTT VoD consumption, and they
feel HSI plans today are primarily designed solely to protect the service providers, not
to benefit the subscriber. Current HSI plans are perceived as:
Rigid: all or nothing, lacking personalization
Confusing: subscriber guesses at data consumption rates, suffers bill shock
Punitive: link down-speed, automatic fees
Non-transparent
Service providers are faced with a dual challenge: dissatisfied customers and the inability to
push their own applications with bandwidth caps in place. With the 7750 SR as their BNG,
service providers attain a subscriber-friendly alternative to rigid use caps personalized
plans that let the subscriber make the trade-offs and get optimal value from their share
of bandwidth.

Application assurance and subscriber-friendly plans

Personalized plans are enabled by the unique ability of the application assurance (AA)
software on the MS-ISA module to fulfill each subscribers application- and session-level
needs. With AA, service providers can see into their network down to the application
level and limit, boost and re-prioritize that traffic on a per-subscriber, per-session or
per-application basis (see Figure 10).

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

12

Per session monitoring

and reporting

Subscriber
A

Subscribers

Wi-Fi
access

Voice

VoIP

Video

Video

Internet

Streaming P2P
Web

AIM
Netflix
YouTube

Voice

VPN access

Video

Gaming

Internet

Email

Subscribers

Services

Application
groups

Fixed access

Boosted App

File transfer

Subscriber
B

AA
eBNG

Applications

BRAS
BNG
eBNG

Before embarking on a personalized plan offering, service providers need to leverage AA

and get detailed business intelligence on their subscribers and their subscribers online
habits. Service providers can get answers to the types of questions that follow.
Subscribers

Who are my top users?

What applications are they consuming?
How much bandwidth is required per application?
What is their usage profile per app?
Peering

Which apps are flowing through my peering points?

How much bandwidth do they consume?
Who are the top users of peering bandwidth?
Network

How do applications flow in my network?

Which applications use the most bandwidth, when?
How do applications perform over time?
What percentage of traffic is OTT?
Armed with this information, service providers can begin offering personalized plans to
ensure fair-share usage in a manner that satisfies each of their subscribers unique needs.
An example of a specialized plan is shown in Figure 11.

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

13

n
ig

E
cute
xe

Per session policy and control

De
s

Figure 10. Per subscriber/session/application monitoring and control

o n ito r

Unified:
Service management
Network management
Policy management
Reporting and analytics
OSS and billing

Figure 11. Fair-share use and subscriber freedom: personalized plans

Basic plan
(volume/speed)

+
Flexible
recharge options

Prioritized*
Unlimited

Metered

+
Specialty app
package

+
Anywhere
Pay TV content

Anywhere
access

Pay TV content
Gaming, TV guide

Voice

Facebook

Video
Internet

Other

Residential
broadband
service

Unlimited (off-peak)
Metered (at peak)

Netflix

HD turbo (on-demand, unmetered)

Premium content is blended into the Internet service so that the subscriber can access
it from any device in the home or through a community broadband link. The service
provider offers this feature as an add-on to a basic metering plan. All content related
traffic including the content itself, the television guide and any related side-bar
content is identified by its application signature and is zero-rated (that is, not applied
against the subscribers cap).
Other selected applications, such as Facebook, are zero-rated for a nominal fee or
provided as a promotional incentive. OTT video applications such as Netflix are identified by their application signature and are metered.
Add-on features, such as unlimited Netflix off-peak, volume Netflix packages on-peak
or guaranteed high-quality boost for a period of time, are used to either minimize OTT
traffic concurrency at peak times or to monetize the flows.

OTT MONETIZATION
In the previous section, the AA capability of the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR allowed popular
OTT applications such as Facebook and Netflix to be monetized or used for promotional
purposes through specialized metering, billing and QoS arrangements. This is only a first
step in changing subscriber perception of the service provider as the provider of commodity
bandwidth to a provider of value-added services.
Service providers can extend the concepts and 7750 SR tools used to achieve personalized plans to develop a whole range of new application services. Service providers can
work with content providers, advertising providers, application providers and retailers
to set up specialized monitoring and control of their applications and services in a way
that adds value to subscribers. New revenue can be generated through revenue-sharing
arrangements with OTT vendors.

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

14

Examples include increasing the QoE for specialty OTT online applications or monetizing
HTTP error redirection. With specialty OTT applications, the BNG can be used to identify,
zero-rate or apply special treatment to traffic flows as they traverse the IP network.
Subscribers can enjoy the freedom of high-quality p2p video or gaming without the
timing glitches that frustrate play today. In HTTP error redirection, AA can be used to
identify and intercept erroneous page references in a URL issued by a subscriber. The
reference is forwarded to an advertising partner who provides an alternative suggestion
for a fee and is then forwarded to the subscriber.

LOCATION FREEDOM: WI-FI

Given their high level of portability, it is no surprise that 30 percent of tablet usage (for
example, Apple iPAD) is now nomadic: its done at shopping malls, stadiums, hotels,
train stations and other congregation points. Customers with these portable computing
devices are now looking to replicate the home experience transparent access to all that
their residential provider has to offer outside the home.
For those with mobile subscriptions, the limited bandwidth of todays 3G data plans are
far too punitive and restrictive to satisfy their needs, and there is no link to their residential services and content. While Wi-Fi hot-spots are popular alternatives, they come with
many problems and limitations, including:
No simple access: The customer needs to select access from a list of cryptic service set
identifiers.
No QoS guarantees: Performance is variable with video quality that is often
unwatchable.
No strong security: Lack of security opens up the device to security threats.
No service bundling: Wi-Fi hotspots are an added expense for the customer and a
missed opportunity for the service provider.
No unified billing: This adds complexity for customer.
No my service everywhere: Wi-Fi is a not an extension of the residential
experience.
The WLAN capability on an Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR allows residential broadband providers
to bundle Wi-Fi access as a revenue-generating option to residential service plans. The
WLAN gateway aggregates the Wi-Fi access points at Wi-Fi hotspots and transparently
forwards their connection requests to all the residential and business services offered on
the BNG.
Residential subscribers within range of their service providers Wi-Fi hotspots can transparently connect to their service provider as if they were at home simply, securely, with
access to all their services and content and with a familiar QoE. Transparent Wi-Fi access
allows residential broadband providers to offer subscribers freedom in the truest sense.
For service providers with both mobile and residential business units, the Wi-Fi access
infrastructure and WLAN gateway on the 7750 SR can also be used to transparently hand
off mobile data connections to the mobile data network. Mobile business units can realize
significant reductions in radio network costs and operational complexity by transparently
moving data connections off the radio network to the Wi-Fi aggregation network whenever
a mobile handset is within range of a Wi-Fi hotspot. For the consumer, unlimited data
access through Wi-Fi encourages usage off the radio network and breeds customer loyalty.

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

15

For service providers without a mobile business unit, excess capacity of the Wi-Fi aggregation network can also be sold wholesale to mobile virtual network operators and other
mobile providers with a small radio footprint. The WLAN capabilities on the 7750 SR
are summarized in Figure 12.
Figure 12. New retail and wholesale revenue opportunities with Wi-Fi

Wireless
business unit

MVNO
IP services edge

Enterprise

Copper

Wireline

IP backbone

Internet

eBNG

Hot spots

Residential
Fiber
Network and policy management

ENHANCED SERVICES
Enhanced IPTV
For many service providers, the first step in enhanced video services with enhanced
BNG capabilities will start with IPTV. The Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR supports multiple new
features that allow service providers to monetize and increase the quality of the IPTV
viewing experience:
PerfectStream video conditioning: The BNG sends two copies of the IPTV stream and
uses information from both to reconstruct a perfect stream with the highest possible
quality in cases of data loss or corruption.
Industrys fastest channel change: IPTV content is copied onto a running cache on
the BNG and forwarded to the subscriber when the channel is changed. This ensures
that the screen is not empty in the several seconds it may take to switch channels
when using the latest video compression formats.
Retransmit on error for high QoE: The information in the above cache is used to
reconstruct the multicast stream in case of error. This process ensures high video
stream integrity.
IGMP-based intelligence gathering: Requests for video content are redirected and
stored to augment business intelligence. This allows service providers to better
monetize and tailor their services and advertising campaigns to subscribers.

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

16

CDN

 IGMP redirect with QoS adjust: Specific requests for video content can be redirected
to provide higher levels of service and increased QoS for higher-end subscribers.
Multiscreen IPTV: Providers can leverage the BNG to deliver their IPTV content
through multicast to the big-screen TV (through the set-top box) and through unicast
to any other device (through a home router). While this does not address unicast scale
issues, it is an excellent transitional step for service providers looking to provide device
freedom for their subscribers as they plan their CDN strategy.
Providers with IPTV services can leverage these 7750 SR features to continue generating
revenue and enhancing their offerings while preparing for a blended video experience
that brings in VoD and Internet content.

Evolving video services and CDNs

While linear TV will continue to grow in the foreseeable future, subscribers are flocking
to an on-demand (VoD) consumption model in greater numbers. Because VoD content is
delivered separately to each user, it cannot benefit from the efficiencies of multicasting,
pushing the bandwidth requirements at centralized BRAS/video home office (VHO) sites
to dozens of 100GigE ports by 2015. Service providers are faced with the dual challenge
of how to accommodate the unicast bandwidth onslaught and how to deliver a unified
service that blends in IPTV and OTT VoD experiences and content.
A distributed architecture (see Figure 13) with a high-performance BNG accomplishes
this in two ways:
It provides the massive scale and performance necessary to accommodate VoD
bandwidth and enable IPTV/VoD convergence (see Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR section).
It allows Velocix CDN caching to be deployed at the edge of the network to optimize
VoD delivery and eliminate QoS issues.
Figure 13. Video service fusion and optimized VoD delivery with distributed caching
External
CDN or
transparent
cache

Internet

IP services edge

Subscriber

Linear TV
and VoD
origin
servers
Content
cache
eBNG
Fixed access

Wi-Fi access

Peer
caches

The introduction of a CDN moves the video streaming origin point and associated
bandwidth load from centralized video servers to distributed caches in BNGs located
in Tier 1 and Tier 2 COs. The decision of what content to cache is based on dynamic
demand, with stale content flushed as demand popularity declines over time. The

Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway

ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

17

Content partner
origin servers

distributed caches with the BNG are cost-optimized for delivery of popular content
while caches deeper in the network are cost-optimized to support a deep content
library of less frequently watched content for a large audience.
Studies show that a distributed caching model based on a Velocix CDN results in a
70-90 percent bandwidth reduction between centralized video storage and distributed
caches during peak times. And because the content travels a shorter distance to the
subscriber, the QoE is far beyond anything an OTT provider can provide through their
Internet-based streaming servers.
Even though a distributed architecture greatly reduces the burden on the streaming origin
points, traffic at Tier-1 and Tier-2 COs is still expected to consume dozens of 100GigE
ports as these routers are tasked with pushing the content to individual subscribers
through the residential access network. 100GigE+ with features is far beyond the capacity
of many BNG routers in the marketplace today but well within the range of an FP3-based
Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR.
The CDN delivery model can be used in a complementary role to the IPTV delivery
infrastructure to support both live broadcast and on-demand content requirements while
meeting user expectations for quality, availability and reliability. Service providers can
enhance their linear IPTV service with broader content choices and evolve the traditional
IPTV experience to an on-demand TV model as viewing habits evolve. Content can
be acquired by extending private content peering arrangements with a broad range of
content providers or through content federations.

CONCLUSION
To best meet subscriber demands for a broadband experience without boundaries while
achieving long-term network scale, service providers require a distributed residential
network and a new high-performance BNG. The Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR is uniquely
qualified for this role by combining high-performance and industry-leading subscriber
management with a range of enhanced capabilities that allow service providers to truly
monetize subscriber freedom:
Industry-leading enhanced subscriber management: Resolves BRAS obsolescence
issues with the industrys most flexible, feature rich and robust subscriber
management platform.
Massive scale and performance: Delivers the sustained high throughput required to
support VoD growth and a converged residential IP edge that enables service blending
flexibility and lower network TCO.
Distributed service intelligence: Enhanced BNG capabilities based on integrated hightouch processing enable long-term scale and lower cost per bit for video transport, a
higher-quality and personalized experience for subscribers, and the ability to quickly
leverage new service opportunities.
Universal gateway: A truly unified Service Routing Operating System (SROS) enables
the 7750 SR to bring in additional services and service access networks to a BNG
platform. This opens up additional opportunities for service providers to monetize
subscriber freedom through retail or wholesale Wi-Fi access or to reap the benefits of
convergence through a unified IP services edge for residential, business and wireless
services (see Figure 14).
Billions of dollars in revenue and the service providers position in the services value
Evolution of the Broadband Network Gateway
ALCATEL-LUCENT APPLICATION NOTE

18

chain at stake. With todays centralized BRAS infrastructures requiring a major upgrade
to resolve end-of-life issues and accommodate IPv6 migration, the time to migrate to the
7750 SR is now.
Figure 14. Extending freedom, service uniformity, simplified operations and platform re-use across
residential, mobile and business customers.

LINEAR
TV
7750 SR IP services edge

Enterprise or consumer

Small Cells

VoD

LTE

7750 SR

Fixed access
Freedom of broadband
without borders
Freedom from cloud
threats and opacity
Freedom to access any
content, anywhere

Wi-Fi access

WEB

VPN AND
CLOUD
Evolved BNG (eBNG)
Cloud-optimized VPN and
business Internet services
Universal wireless data
services gateway

www.alcatel-lucent.com Alcatel, Lucent, Alcatel-Lucent and the Alcatel-Lucent logo are trademarks of
Alcatel-Lucent. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The information presented
is subject to change without notice. Alcatel-Lucent assumes no responsibility for inaccuracies contained herein.
Copyright 2012 Alcatel-Lucent. All rights reserved. M2012032515 (April)